Yan Gamarnik Soviet military leader, statesman and party leader. Date of Birth: 21.05.1894 Country: Ukraine

Biography of Yan Gamarnik

Yan Gamarnik was a Soviet military commander, statesman, and party leader. He was born into an intellectual Jewish family and had to support himself from a young age. At the age of 17, Gamarnik became interested in Marxism. He completed his education at a gymnasium with a silver medal in 1913 and then moved to Malin, Kiev Governorate, where he worked as a tutor.

In 1914, Gamarnik enrolled in the St. Petersburg Psychoneurological Institute but later transferred to the law faculty of Kiev University in 1915. During his time in Kiev, he became acquainted with the leaders of the Bolshevik underground in Ukraine, N.A. Skrypnik and S.V. Kosior, who had a significant influence on him. In 1916, Gamarnik joined the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) and conducted propaganda work at the Arsenal factory in Kiev.

After the February Revolution of 1917, Gamarnik became the head of the Kiev Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks). However, he was arrested by the authorities in Petrograd after the October Revolution along with other leaders of the Kiev Bolsheviks. He was freed through an armed uprising on October 31, 1917. During the German occupation of Ukraine, Gamarnik operated in the underground. In 1918, he arrived in Moscow, met Vladimir Lenin, and was elected to the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine. He played a role in suppressing the rebellion of the Left Socialist Revolutionaries and held various leadership positions in the party and government in Kiev and Odessa.

From 1919, Gamarnik served as the chairman of the Odessa Provincial Committee of the Communist Party and was involved in military-political work. In 1919, he became a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Group of the 12th Army. After the defeat of Denikin's troops, Gamarnik became the chairman of the Kiev Provincial Committee of the Communist Party and the Kiev Provincial Executive Committee in February 1920. He held various leadership positions in the Far East, including chairman of the Primorsky Provincial Executive Committee and the Far Eastern Regional Executive Committee.

From 1928 to 1929, Gamarnik served as the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Belarus and implemented the policy of collectivization. He then became the head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army from 1929 to 1937 and played a significant role in purging the military of former White Army officers. He was responsible for granting permission for the arrest of Red Army officers by the NKVD. In 1930, he became the first deputy People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs of the USSR and contributed to the technical reconstruction of the Red Army.

Gamarnik defended Marshal Tukhachevsky, stating that a mistake had been made in his case. However, he was appointed as the Commissioner of the People's Commissariat of Defense of the USSR and a member of the Military Council of the Central Asian Military District. He was a member of the All-Union Central Executive Committee and the Central Electoral Commission of the USSR.

Gamarnik was posthumously rehabilitated in 1957, and it was revealed that he had been falsely accused of anti-state activities. He was awarded the Order of Lenin and the Order of the Red Banner for his contributions to the Soviet Union. Gamarnik's wife was sentenced to 8 years of imprisonment and later an additional 10 years, she died in a labor camp in 1943. His daughter, Victoria Yanovna, became an engineer and worked in the Ministry of Oil Refining and Petrochemical Industry of the USSR.

Gamarnik had two sisters, Faina Borisovna, who worked as a doctor in the Sanitary Administration of the Kremlin and was later repressed, and Clara Borisovna, who was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and worked in various organizations. Despite his active involvement in building the Soviet state, Gamarnik did not realize that it did not meet his idealistic vision, as evidenced by his anecdote about his father asking for his old leather boots and fearing that people would think he stole them because his son served in the army.